


Long, Lonely Hours

by Neffectual



Series: 104 Reasons to Stay Alive [27]
Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Angst, Depression, F/M, Loneliness, M/M, Strength, Stress, Weakness, orisor inspired
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-22
Updated: 2014-11-22
Packaged: 2018-02-26 14:43:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,525
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2655800
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Neffectual/pseuds/Neffectual
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Living through their time in the Corps is the hardest thing any of them have ever had to do - and that's without factoring in the titans.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Long, Lonely Hours

**Author's Note:**

> This should probably be subtitled 'Fuck Everything'.

The barracks are always small, cramped and there comes a time where everyone is one big raw nerve, just waiting to snap, each movement by another rasping across it and making the tension rise like the floodwaters. This space, the filthy, four-roomed space they find themselves in, on a desperate retreat, is the worst so far, although Erwin knows if they head further away from the city, they will find even worse accommodations. As it is, the squads bed down in one of the rooms, piled together like animals for warmth, and in the second, smaller bedroom, Erwin, Levi, Mike and Hanji make their office and sleeping quarters, and do their best not to wind each other up any more than usual. Sometimes, a joke defuses a situation, but this is a ticking time bomb, and no one dares breathe too loudly, for fear of being the one to overturn the tension. Already, Jaeger and Kirschtein have had to be separated three times, and at the last, the shifter pup drew blood. Ackerman and Arlert have been tasked with keeping them apart, for now, but they have only so long before those two go off the deep end, too – Arlert doesn’t look like he ever had more than a tenuous grasp on sanity even before he was regularly covered in titan blood.  
“That’s my side of the desk.” Levi snaps, and Mike doesn’t argue that last night, he had been moved three times until Levi found the perfect space, simply shifts his paperwork to the place Levi has vacated, and settles back to reading between the lines of their latest reply from the Capital.  
“You can’t just push everyone around because you have a vile temper.” Erwin remarks, from where he’s given up on the desk altogether, and is stretching out his calves on the bed, the cold making them sore and stiff, “We’re not cadets you can cow by shouting.”  
There is a flicker of movement from Levi, before he’s at Erwin’s throat with a knife, and the tableau freezes, Hanji mid-step to pull them apart.  
“So I can’t be rude to him because you used to fuck him?” Levi hisses, and the room feels suddenly colder, “Is that what you’re saying?”  
“You can’t be rude to me because I mete out the rations.” Mike says, as calmly as possible, “And you used to fuck me as well, if I’m remembering correctly.”  
Levi deflates, knife vanishing again, and steps away, back towards his paperwork.  
“Apologise.” Hanji says, stern and unforgiving, “You don’t threaten your lovers, Levi, or have you forgotten?”  
Mike swears under his breath as he looks at the three of them, Hanji taking them straight back into the danger zone.  
“I misspoke.” Levi allows, grudgingly, and they all know that is the closest to an apology they’ll get from him, “Now can we get on with this before all the candlelight is wasted?”  
Erwin doesn’t speak as he gets up from the bed and puts his boots back on, heading for the door.  
“Don’t do this.” Mike says, quietly, hoping that they can derail this for once.  
“Someone needs to be in with the cadets.” Erwin mutters, head down, “I’ll sleep there.”  
The door closes behind with a quiet click, but by the way they all flinch at the sound, it may as well have been a slam.

That night, Erwin sleeps alone in the squad room, isolated by rank and fear, and shivering in the icy breeze, which needs human warmth to keep it out. Levi sleeps curled between Mike and Hanji, where usually he lies in the curve of Erwin’s body, and wonders why he feels unsafe and alone. The two of them do what they can for him, but it all feels wrong, to hear them whisper over his head, thinking he is already asleep.  
“Would he really…?”  
“Who knows?”  
“But not really…?”  
“Maybe.”  
“We need some leave.”  
“All leave cancelled until further notice.”  
Levi makes a silent snarl at that, because you don’t take leave when you’re the last hope humanity has for survival, you don’t have time to worry about your personal life when you’re the only reason other people have lives at all. If you’re willing to die for something, it doesn’t matter if you’re also willing to live for it. He must doze off eventually, because he wakes to movement beside him, and curls into the motion before remembering that this is Mike beside him, not Erwin, and then deciding it doesn’t matter anyway. Here, in the dead of night, what is the difference between one man and another? Mike still has hair to be pulled, a neck to be bitten, a back to rake his nails down, and a strong, broad body to cover him completely, large hands on his sides, cradling him as if he is something precious. In the morning, Levi will remember that the difference between one man and another in the dark is that one is loved, trusted, wanted, needed, and that the other is only a convenient body to be close to. But now, in the darkness, the heat from Mike’s body makes him feel drunk, to be wanted like this again, and he accepts what he can have, because to think on what he cannot is too painful.

Hanji lies silently next to her two bed partners, trying not to listen to the pleased gasps or the drawn out moans, silenced with a hand over Levi’s mouth eventually. She does her best to remain still, before realizing that neither will notice if she rolls over, turning her back to them so that she only has her brain to blame for the images. It is not that she wants either of them as hers, or that she wishes she was part of what they have, but it is pure jealousy, a simple little worm of a feeling which curls up inside of her and makes her dream of a lover who is purely hers, who would love her and only her. Just for once, she wants to be looked at like she is the entire world, that someone would have eyes for no one but her, rather than be someone who is always there, dependable and necessary, but not exactly loved, never exactly welcomed. She is needed for the success of the corps, she knows that, but if anyone wishes she could be more than practical, they never say. She is always there to pick them up when they fall, to patch up and medicate, to draw strategic lines in the sand through every argument and fix their lives when they break them carelessly, but no one offers her a shoulder to cry on, or a hand to hold in the darkness. No one ever thinks that she might be breaking too, or that she is barely holding everything together, no one stops to ask how she feels, or if they can do anything for her. She is supposed to be strong all the time, but no one is strong alone, and her foundations are crumbling. She buries her face in a pillow as she feels the thin mattress move beneath her, and stifles her sobs. She suspects neither of them would care, even if they could hear her.

Come morning, Erwin’s back is stiff, and he wakes to Hanji curled against him, shaking with tears, the cadets stood around as if they have no idea what to do when faced with a crying woman, as if they have no understanding of emotions. Levi and Mike step out of the bedroom, and when Erwin gestures to Hanji’s tears, Levi shakes his head.  
“I don’t care.” He says, and grips Mike’s hand harder, dragging him along. It’s more of a blow to the gut than Erwin expected, knowing that Levi cares for little but himself, but expecting some sentiment surrounding Hanji, who has held him in his hard times, but he seems to feel little to no obligation to return any of the affection and sympathy. When Hanji sits up, she rocks back and forth, and mumbles unintelligible words, clearly lost in a web of her own imagining.  
“Leave, sir.” Ackerman says, softly, and it’s very clearly an order, “We look after our own.”  
The moment Erwin is off the mattress, Hanji is surrounded by the girls, cradling her, petting her hair, whispering soothing words, and Erwin walks away, with only a few backwards glances. Men, he decides, are stupid and useless, and he’s the epitome of that sentiment. In the dining room, Levi is under the table, and Mike’s eyes are closed in pleasure. Erwin sits as if nothing is happening, picking at stale bread and pretending anyone has an appetite these days. They’re all broken, irrevocably so, with no chance to rescue, and when they can’t even be there for each other, there is no hope left. Is this what humanity has become, this broken shell of self-loathing, or have they always had this lurking inside of them? Levi crawls out from under the table and sips his tea. Erwin does not meet his eyes. No one speaks.


End file.
